Subject: Re: In progress observations
There is an opportunity cost for waiting a decade for the perfect pitch. And acquiring whole US companies of significant size at a good price has become harder. And last time the market crashed in 2020, Buffett didn’t swing at all.

I couldn't agree more. There is a limit to the extent to which cash can pile up without impacting long term compounding characteristics of the business. FInding places to deploy the accumulated cash is THE key capital allocation problem for Greg. Keeping on kicking the can down the road just makes it harder..

5 years ago Berkshire had $138b net cash. So over half a decade it has effectively ended up assumulating $232b more of cash reserves looking for a use. I would be much more comfortable with a steady regular buyback than hope for Greg Abel to suddenly reinvent himself as a market timer extraordinaire sitting around waiting to pounce in the next crash ( which Buffett himself did not do at any time in the last 10 years despite a number of clear market dislocations).
So as a shareholder I would want to see Greg making a steady series of intelligent decisions rather than comfortable hoarding capital waiting for some spectacular meltdown in the markets. Berkshire has long since crossed the size of reserves where the reserves it already has are more than sufficient for any large transaction the capital markets can throw at it. I don't really want another 5 years to go by and berkshite sitting on $600-700b idle cash and pretending that is evidence of intelligent capital allocation. If that happened, I think the market should rationally award a lower than usual valuation multiple to the business.